


How to escape from prison in 210 days

by mayachain



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Friendship/Love, Future Fic, Harm to Children, Imprisonment, M/M, Past Character Death, Post - X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Trust, absent Wolverine, dead people staying dead, hard feelings, poetry as anchor, teacher Bobby Drake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 15:51:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few years after X3, Pyro has been imprisoned by the X-Men. He is not going to stay a prisoner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 191

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by, though by no means fulfilling all requirements of, a [post-X3 challenge](http://community.livejournal.com/dry_ice/148461.html) by nightshade24 and posted to dry_ice waaaay back in 2006.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After 190 days of imprisonment, Pyro is... not a happy prisoner.

_Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread;_  
 _For Love is dead._  
 _All Love is dead, infected;_  
 _With plague of deep disdain;_  
 _Worth, as nought worth, rejected,_  
 _And Faith fair scorn does gain._

(from "A Litany" by Sir Philip Sidney)

  


**Day 191**

Pyro doesn't admit it, but he's watching the door.

It's always the same.

A sullen little girl who has long since stopped eyeing him curiously comes by with his breakfast and his evening meal.

His lunch is accompanied by Bobby.

He's been here for six months now.

The cell measures eight by seven and has a tiny shelf on one of the walls. The bed is not too uncomfortable, and under it is a small plastic thing that can be used as a desk.

After his capture, it took four days for Pyro to resign himself to the fact that while it could well be possible to melt the bars to get out into the main cellar room, they have no other weakness, not even the lock at the door. As long as and since no-one will let so much as a spark near him, he is stuck.

Bobby is like clockwork. Every day, he shows up at 2 pm.

Leaned up against one of the bars he can´t melt, there is an untouched blank college block and a pencil. St John hasn't written a word for five years; he isn't going to start now.

It took Pyro a day to stop raging at the X-Men who couldn´t even muster up enough resolve to turn him over to the government, and two days to devise a decent training programme.

Every day, he spends an hour trying to pick open the lock at the narrow door disrupting the steel bar pattern. He knows it won't open. He´s been told it's designed to need a key with a certain temperature, and ice is another thing they aren't giving him.

He has no means here to listen to music, or watch TV. No potential sparks from over-heated electricity.

His tiny shelf holds some quite extraordinary pieces of literature, shoved at him by Bobby. Pyro cannot believe how much he has come to like ancient English poetry.

He refuses to give up on escape entirely. Without fire, he has to rely on his wits and physical strength.

The thickest volumes on the shelf comprise Elizabethan screenplays. Shakespeare is untouched. Working out, Pyro recites lines from Marlowe to himself, taking what shallow pleasure he can from spiting Xavier beyond the grave.

Bobby never has a key on him.

Beast came to visit him once, to perform a medical check. That's when he found out that two weeks after his capture, Storm and Magneto killed each other dead.

During the first 25 lunch sessions, Pyro ignored every attempt the Iceman made to talk to him. After four weeks of the X-Men's only prisoner staring through him, Bobby stopped talking.

It's nearly two o'clock. There's the door. Pyro´s not watching.

Without Erik, whoever the X-Men are fighting frequently these days won´t be coming for him.

There's never never _never_ anything on the plates that Pyro refuses to eat. The Iceman's not supposed to remember the list of things St John deemed inedible.

He knows Bobby´s an all-powerful teacher now, although what Robert Drake could possibly have to teach innocent mutant children, Pyro has no clue.

The door leading out of the cellar is thick and heavy and has to be opened by a code.

Yesterday, Pyro was so caught up with Sir Thomas Wyatt that only a quick glance at the sooner than normally departing waiter alerted him to a change of protocol. His lunch had arrived by girlie-girl this time.

He caught the code reflected in the shiny medical cupboard across the room on the 113th day he was here.

Any second now -

The door slides open, and Pyro stares right past a terrine of soup on a tray and a pair of pigtails.

There are still about ten hours of the day left.

St John knows Bobby won´t be showing.

Maybe he finally got the message. 

 

.


	2. Day 194

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby stopped bringing Pyro his lunch four days ago. He is... not a happy prisoner.

_Why did you give no hint that night_  
 _That quickly after the morrow´s dawn_  
 _And calmly, as if indifferent quite_  
 _You would close your term here, up and be gone_  
 _Where I could not follow_  
 _With wing of swallow_  
 _To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!_

_Never to bid good-bye,_  
 _Or lip me the softest call_  
 _Or utter a wish for a word, while I_  
 _Saw morning harden upon the wall_  
 _Unmoved, unknowing_  
 _That your great going_  
 _Had place that moment, and altered all._

(From "The Going" by Thomas Hardy)

  


**Day 194**

Once he finds a way to get past the steel bars, he figures the rest of the security system won´t be too much of a problem. After all, he´s watched Mystique bypass truly ingenious ones.

He's not watching the door. He's not wondering about pale-faced pigtail-girl's name, either. He speculates that if he ever wants to escape, he needs to get her to reveal her supposedly Pyro-immune mutation.

Magneto taught him that any mutant's prime enemies will always be the humans. He has 39 scars to prove this is true, and 14 scars left by mutants who believed the prime enemies to be Erik and him.

Everything is, everything has always been black and white with Iceman.

Back when he was at school, he had bics and matches stacked away everywhere. Some will have been removed, of course. There´s no way the juniors or the Professor or Storm or Scott have found all of them.

He's not wondering where Robert Drake corrects the short daily tests he torments his class with now, the ones Bobby one day started to bring along with Pyro's lunch to do in front of him.

Pyro never had any scruples fighting the X-Men. He may leave a few corpses behind if he can´t manage to leave through the secret passages without being seen.

Today´s lunch reveals Brussels sprouts among the vegetables.

He's not remembering two cups of orange juice and a second fork clanging against cutlery.

He doesn't give a shit about Bobby abandoning him. He really, truly doesn't.

 

.


	3. Day 195

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyro is... a very unhappy prisoner.

_Alas! I lie, rage hath this error bred;_  
 _Love is not dead._  
 _Love is not dead, but sleepeth_  
 _In her unmatchèd mind,_  
 _Where she his counsel keepeth,_  
 _Till due desert she find._

(From "A Litany" by Sir Philip Sidney)

  
 **Day 195**

So there was a fight. 

When Bobby finally does come, his head is bandaged and he looks absolutely terrible. Pyro takes in the black eye, the awkward movements, the scratches and swellings of various coloration. He fights, needs to be disappointed the Iceman didn´t sustain any more permanent injuries. 

But -- 

One look beyond cuts and bruises, and St John knows that while Bobby hasn´t shown up for four days, it´s not because he lost interest, it´s because Pete and Kitty almost died. 

_Why are you here,_ St John doesn´t ask. Bobby doesn´t answer, _Because you thought I´d given up._

There aren´t any words. If there was still a telepath alive upstairs, he or she could hear the conversation they have. 

Bobby walks towards the cell and drops down heavily with his back against the bars. 

St John stares. 

There has been a fight, a vicious fight between the remnants of the X-Men and vengeful members of the Brotherhood. It´s not a hard guess, and he can tell by the shape of the scars on Bobby´s neck. 

Bobby looks like he´s been in the medlab for at least 48 hours straight, has barely eaten and certainly not slept. Only now has he thought it safe enough to leave his mortally wounded teammates, friends. St John is sure that Hank told him to check on the children and then head straight to bed. 

He should have done, Pyro´s not going anywhere. There´s neither a reason nor lack of time to check on John. Yet Bobby is here, he came downstairs the minute he could get away because he couldn´t have St John thinking what he thought. 

Bobby´s head drops against the steel of the cell, and St John knows his eyes are closed. Pyro is thinking of a hundred ways to use the situation, thinking so hard he´s actually silent. 

St John seats himself on the floor behind Bobby, on his side of the bars. Before he knows what he´s doing, his fingers have closed around Bobby´s shoulders and started kneading. 

Bobby sighs, and St John feels the man who´s held him prisoner for 195 days relax into the touch. He doesn´t know what the hell he´s doing, but he doesn´t stop. 

Pyro is screaming for St John to break Iceman´s neck, grab the keys, and _get out._ St John calmly thinks back that Bobby doesn´t _have keys_ on him and dead Bobby couldn´t freeze keys if he had any. 

Right now, escape is not what´s most important. 

Bobby is here, with him, while the world is black and white and technically they are, they should be enemies. It´s a level of insanity or trust that was never before reached. He cannot come up with a poet to honour this, can´t think of one to do it justice. 

Still not knowing what he´s doing, St John leans down and slowly presses his lips to Bobby´s shoulder, slides his hands around Bobby´s chest and pulls him into a backwards hug, resting his chin on the shoulder he just kissed. 

Bobby doesn´t say anything, doesn´t question. He just snuggles closer, and after a moment, St John knows Bobby has fallen asleep. 

********* **

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

Bobby jolts awake, jumps up, looks at St John, panicked. His right hand clutches his pager, and he goes pale when he sees whoever (Hank?) it is. He´s at the door four seconds after the first beep, but he stops to look back at St John, determination there now as well as panic. 

_I don´t know when I´ll be back but I will,_

and then Bobby is gone and all Pyro can do is try to figure out what the hell happened as St John paces across the cell again and again. 

****

****.** **


	4. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyro is a very... unusual prisoner.

_Think not leech, or newt or toad_  
 _Will bite thy foot, when thou hast troad;_  
 _Nor let the water rising high,_  
 _As thou wad´st in, make thee cry_  
 _And sob, but ever live with me_  
 _And not a wave shall trouble thee._

(From "Do Not Fear to Put Thy Feet" by John Fletcher)

  


****

**Interlude - Days 196-209**

It goes like this for two weeks. St John never knows when Bobby will show up, but he always does, and St John has never seen Bobby so tired. 

They never talk. Sometimes they touch, sometimes they don't. Some days Bobby barely gets into the room, standing in the doorway and just looking at St John for two minutes before heading back to whatever chaos there is upstairs, and St John has stopped wondering how he became a lifeline. 

Some days Bobby dozes off for an hour or two while they sit on the floor, limbs threaded through the bars similar to how they did the first time. 

St John never asks why Bobby doesn't simply let him out, because he's not sure what Pyro would do yet, and Bobby's too strung out to think along such lines. 

Above ground, there are things going on, things he knows Erik never would have let happen. 

He tenses every time he thinks he hears the alarms. 

**.**


	5. Day 210

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyro is... no longer a prisoner.

_Say not, the struggle nought availeth,_  
 _The labour and the wounds are vain,_  
 _The enemy faints not, or faileth,_  
 _And as things have been they remain._

(From "Say Not, the Struggle Nought Availeth"  
by Arthur Hugh Clough)

  
 **Day 210**

The door opens, and Bobby limps in. St John thought before he couldn´t possibly look worse, but he does. He stumbles towards the cell, a metallic something falling out of his shirt. Stumbles and falls, doesn't hurt himself too badly, St John doesn´t think, but he doesn´t get up.

There is no sound, but something breaks.

St John watches helplessly as Bobby´s fist starts hitting the floor, weakly at first, but again and again and with more force, his lungs and throat letting out a mixture of a sob and a scream which sounds completely inhumane, and St John knows one of the children has died.

Magneto´s death tore the Brotherhood apart. Some will have continued to fight for the old man´s cause, sticking to the means Lensherr himself would have employed.

Some, Pyro doesn´t know how many, will not.

There was no accident, and the child´s death was not by human hand.

"Bobby, give me the keys." He realizes later that it´s the first time he's spoken to Bobby since he´s been captured. Bobby doesn´t react. "Bobby, give me the keys," St John says again, but there´s just sobbing and sounds that shouldn´t come out of a mutated being. "KEYS, ICEMAN," St John shouts in his most authoritative Brotherhood voice, and it works.

A minute later Pyro´s jeers at being out being _out being **out**_ are pushed aside by St John kneeling next to a broken Robert Drake and holding him close. He´s never said "Shh" before in his life, but now he does, and eventually the sobs subside. The violent shaking doesn´t stop.

St John gets up and walks over to the easily picked-open medical cupboard, and is relieved to find a sedative he remembers Mystique calling mild because he´s not sure about dosage. Bobby doesn´t react, doesn´t flinch, perhaps doesn´t notice when St John shoves the needle into his arm, and then he´s passed out.

St John watches him for a while, making sure there´s nothing wrong with the way he is breathing. Then, noticing with satisfaction just how fruititious his endless mindless workout sessions have been, he has no difficulties picking the Iceman up.

 

***

 

Pyro provides the code to get out of the first prison section. At the second door, he holds Bobby´s hand against the scanner, which obediently equals the cryokinesis gene to authorized personnel. The third, for which he is sure he would´ve needed at least an hour to somehow fake an absence of drugs in Bobby´s eyes, miraculously is already open when he gets there.

The children all watch him as he carries Bobby across the corridor. They watch him wearily, but there isn´t a single exclamation of alarm. He´s Brotherhood, a member of which group just killed, murdered one of them, but they´re not afraid of him.

The older ones know him, they remember how St John used to live with them, they remember how Pyro and Iceman used to be friends. They also remember 189 days of Robert Drake regularly disappearing and have enough sense to understand the implications.

St John sees that there are mattresses laid out all over the dining hall floor, glimpses Jones positioned in a corner in front of a dozen monitors, but moves straight past to what he knows was Mr.Summers' and guesses correctly is now Bobby's room. He yanks the door open and gently lays the unconscious mutant teacher on the bed, drapes him in his bed sheets and puts a glass of water on the nightstand.

He rests his hand on Bobby´s cheek for a moment, then walks swiftly into the dining hall. He doesn't look at the children trailing after him as he wrenches open a cupboard and pulls out a box of candles. No-one says a word as he positions them along the walls of the large room, gaps of two feet between them.

_Now. Where..._

There is no gasp as he finds a set of matches and sends a small fireball to light them.

Only when every candle in the room is burning, St John turns to face the children. They are huddled together, frightened and grieving. St John meets the eyes of pigtail-girl, who he suddenly is sure must be Artie´s little sister.

His voice has barely been used for six and a half months, yet it´s steady and determined. "Anyone who´s trying to hurt you, they´re gonna burn."

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> All poems were taken from my copies of either ["Immortal Poems of the English Language](http://www.amazon.de/Immortal-Poems-English-Language-Williams/dp/0671496107/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1272837441&sr=1-2) (An Anthology Edited by Oscar Williams) or ["Six Centuries of Great Poetry](http://www.amazon.de/Six-Centuries-Great-Poetry-Collection/dp/0440213835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1272837332&sr=8-1) (edited by Robert Penn Warren and Albert Erskine).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [How to reintegrate into society in about forty weeks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654514) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain)
  * [even if.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882053) by [porcelainsimplicity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcelainsimplicity/pseuds/porcelainsimplicity)




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